Paul Sassone

Tell that to John Wayne.

You can’t, of course. He died on June 11, 1979. But that hasn’t put a dent in Wayne’s popularity.

Each year since 1994, Harris Poll has conducted a survey to find out who are America’s favorite movie stars. This year John Wayne came in second to Denzel Washington — a neat trick since, as I pointed out Wayne is dead while Washington is alive.

And Wayne is moving up. Last year he was No. 7 on the list.

John Wayne is the only movie start to appear on the Harris Poll list every year since the poll began 21 years ago.

I bring this up because Father’s Day is approaching. And for me, somehow, Father’s Day and John Wayne go together.

Maybe I associate the two because the first time my father ever took me to the movies we saw “Wake of the Red Witch,” A high-seas. South Sea adventure in which John Wayne battled bad guys, giant clams and octopusses (octopi?).

There were no witches. And though I liked the movie a lot, I remember being slightly disappointed that Red Witch was the name of a ship.

But it’s not just me who is a John Wayne fan. Which is why I brought up the Harris Poll.

There is something about the appeal of John Wayne that just won’t die and is unique to any other movie star. John Wayne movies are all over TV. And one station, MoviesTV, devotes each Monday to John Wayne films.

A few years ago when America had bookstores, I was browsing in one. In the movies section there was a display of John Wayne DVDs.

Sell many John Wayne movies? I asked the clerk.

“Oh yes,” he replied. “All the time. It’s amazing.”

For any actor. But for a long-dead actor? Positively supernatural.

I’m not smart enough or educated enough to explain John Wayne’s enduring popularity.

I know that — despite the claims of after-all-these- years angry hippies — John Wayne was a really fine actor. And I know he made some of the greatest movies of all time.

More than that, though, there is something about him I have to leave to scholars, something about archetypes, symbolism, heroism and the myth of the American frontier.

But for the purposes of this column, for the purposes of Father’s Day, what I want to say is that 10-to-1 your father likes John Wayne.

I bet your dad would like nothing better than to sit back for a couple of hours on Father’s Day — or any day — and watch a John Wayne movie. Maybe watch it with you.

And fathers being fathers, chances are his electronic know-how stopped with DVDs.

There are many, many John Wayne movies on DVD. They make a nice Father’s Day gift. Need suggestions?

Here are a few of my favorites, “The Searchers,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “True Grit,” “Fort Apache,” “The Quiet Man,” “Hondo,” “Red River,” “The Shootist,” “Stagecoach.”

I could go on. Wayne made more than 200 films. But this is a good start.

Come Father’s Day, I may sneak a peek at “Wake of the Red Witch.”

Of course, I have it on DVD.

Oh, yes, the other movie stars placing in this year’s Harris Poll are (in order after Washington and Wayne)  Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford and Angelina Jolie.